


Vertebrae

by leaveyoursanityatthedoor



Series: Witch Verse [2]
Category: Ghost (Sweden Band), The Witch (2016)
Genre: F/M, Mild Kink, Mild S&M, Older Man/Younger Woman, Post-Reflections, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-25 13:49:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18575755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leaveyoursanityatthedoor/pseuds/leaveyoursanityatthedoor
Summary: A quick, self-indulgent HC drabble imagining Thomasin and Papa II five years down the line.





	Vertebrae

**Author's Note:**

> AN:  
> 1\. I love the idea of Papa being tattooed, so I decided to give him some new ink.  
> 2\. This isn't the follow up mentioned in the final chapter of Blue Skyed Eternity—that's still to come. This is just something frivolous that was dying to get out.  
> 3\. I do not own Papa Emeritus II or Thomasin. I am forever indebted to Robert Eggers, Tobias Forge, Martin Persner and Peter Hällje for them.

**Vertebrae**

 

In another time, another world away now, he would have been someone she hated. She often thinks this as her fingers trace a leisurely path up and down the tattoo spanning the length of his vertebral column. Even face to face with him, she can feel it, her fingers attuned to its subtle, embossed texture. Some tattoos look vulgar, she thinks, and won't age well, but his collection are tasteful. Five years have elapsed since the night he revealed himself to her, and three since the inking of his backbone; however much things around her change—the seasons; the faces of newcomers to the church; the subtle shifts in her appearance as she has grown into full fledged womanhood—that decoration of his upper body, and that pitch black vector of his spine, will always be there. Paradoxically, this very permanence serves as a striking reminder of the rapid and drastic change everything else is subject to.

Satan have mercy, she loves his inked skin, and she loves telling him why.

Had their paths crossed under different circumstances, she would have fled. If the she of old had not already chosen the dark before she had known it, there would have been absolutely no way on God's green Earth that she would have felt anything beyond repulsion towards this man, this living, breathing paragon of sin. That childhood part of her isn't entirely dead, and perhaps never will be; yet, it astounds her to think that, all the same, she has no want or need for it any more. How ironic for the most traumatic era in her life to be that nebulous catalyst she had secretly always held out hope for, from the moment she stepped foot onto New World soil.

The she of old would have rejected the notion of having a future under any other deity but God, and especially with a man who treated her as an equal. All she had known of men was that they held the reigns of power. They might not be cruel, or even harsh, but a woman's place was nevertheless in subservience to them. Of religion, she had grown up believing in punishments, not pleasures, of a stern Lord who demanded barren cleanliness and purity, and would look upon his subjects with disdain if they did not, or could not, measure up to His impossible standards. Her former faith is not one that holds the human species in high regard.

Besides having her entire family killed, the worst thing Papa has ever done to her is to introduce her to the darker facets of his love: the side that puts her naked over his knee and spanks her until her backside is red raw, and that has her on her knees before him, licking his ferula from base to tip; the part of him that has her bound at the wrists and fastened to his bedposts, teasing, teasing and teasing her to the brink of utter madness by first sliding the tip of his firm cock up and down between her slick folds for what seems like forever, before relenting only a fraction and allowing her to feel the head inside her, inciting her whimpered pleas for full penetration; the aspect of him that loves to taunt her with their combined denial on the day of their scheduled 'bonding appointments', pressing against her from behind, his arousal at full mast, and whispering in her ear "You're mine tonight". If he encounters her in passing during those days, the look he gives her could raze cities to the ground. She is a rabbit in a wolf's sights, helpless except to be devoured by him. Time permitting, ocasionally he takes her aside, letting her stroke his clothed erection while his gloved hands work first her clit and then her sweet internal spot, but refuses to give them both that final release, and forbidding her from finishing herself off.

Oh, the depraved old man drives her mad; and how she delights in being driven mad. That she is one of numerous lovers, forcing her to have to wait her turn for his intimate attentions, can be equally frustrating, but also stokes her ardor for him more. He makes every one of his girls wait, and he makes all of them suffer.

All things considered, not a bad lot. If those were the only issues you had to worry about, you knew you had it pretty damn good. Things could have been so starkly different, after all; even if she had never traversed that great ocean, her life would have most likely played out in a way that didn't bear thinking about. Sometimes she still wondered if the now was real, and when she would wake up.

The she of 16, of 17, would have died to be here. The she of 18 _had_ died to be here; aided in murdering her own family too. Yes, he'd had her at the moment he gored her father to death, because that was completely how romances went. But her world had become so topsy turvy by then, a relationship forged on such an absurdity wasn't entirely out of keeping.

Of equal craziness is her particular fixation with one part of his anatomy; although she loves looking at, and touching, every part of him, she bears an almost fetishistic obsession with his spine. Where such a fascination has come from she knows, but as to why, she cannot be completely sure, except that it started with him. Perhaps it had been the terrifying enormity of the situation she found herself in amping up her every sense, sensation, and emotion, but the night he claimed her virginity she experienced sex in a completely different way than she imagined any God-fearing christian could. He set a precedent, and every time he fucked her thereafter she found herself paying attention to things beyond the immediate physical pleasure: the strength of his grip; the hammering of his heart; the lean muscles of his biceps and back rising and falling, flexing and swelling; the gliding of his shoulder blades and hips; and most of all, the undulations of his spine. Physical sensations, but at the same time so much more than that. Maybe on account of how perilously close she had skirted death, her mind and body, reborn under Satan, experienced and enjoyed every moment with an appreciation afforded only to those who had witnessed the end of life.

He tells her that he loves the way she probes his spine, because it reminds him, too, of that inaugral union. He is a man who lives for thrills, and the way she gave herself to him that night, the way she moved and the noises she made and the way she lost herself in him and in the rush of it all, thrilled him. It still thrills both of them now, five years on. Ludicrous as it would sound to outsiders, nothing kept desire alive like remembering that you had met your lover, your mentor, as Hell itself had ascended. Touching his spine, and having his spine touched, reminds them of that.

She had been the one to follow him without realising it, and he, feigning obliviousness, the one to coax her. Psychologically from a distance, the concealed part of her psyche that already knew him and wanted what he offered had sensed him work his dark magic, the conscious side registering a sickness swelling unbidden in the pit of her stomach, and the thoroughly conflicted part of her waking rationality imploring her to reconsider the decision she knew deep down she was going to make. That day seven years ago, facing each other for that first time as he rolled by in his coach, some sort of tacit understanding had passed between his conscious and her subconscious—not quite a pact, but an agreement of sorts, even a challenge—but bearing witness to the havoc he had wreaked shook that agreement to its very foundations. On a conscious level he had _scared_ her, not aroused her. Yet, compelled by a lethal combination of curiosity, and striving for change, she had persisted. Female though she was, she did not back down from adventures nor challenges. She had always wanted more from life, and had always known there had to be more. And as terrified as she had been throughout that period in her young life, that stubborn, resolute part of her had held on for all it was worth. What could have been the death of her, perhaps even should have been, had ultimately saved her.

It is quite ludicrous to think that someone who had killed to achieve his own means, could be capable of loyalty to another human being, much less love; but here they are.

So, thank Almighty Lucifer for witchcraft, and murder. This is the world they live in, resplendent in all its corrupt, filthy glory, but it has its perks. And she has been so, so fortunate.

Tonight it is their half decade anniversary, and they are celebrating it in front of their whole 'family'. The officials, the clergy members, the sisters, the ghouls and the congregation, watch avidly as the witch who was once a pure girl reminisces with her Papa. Fingers that have cast spells and created potions and crafted sinful arts of their own trace the demarcation between black and white on his face, in awe of him as if for the first time. He will fuck her ravenously on the altar, on the ritual bed provided, on the floor and against the wall. He will bite and scrape and mark her young, tender flesh with his teeth and with hands that she or anyone rarely sees bare; in return she will claw at his back, drawing and gathering his blood beneath her nails as she cries out in abandonment. She will mark his back. She will mark his spine.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Comments and criticisms are all very welcome. Wanna talk to me? Head over to whatitsaysonthelabel on tumblr and shoot me an ask or DM.


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